Don’t blame yourself for your faults. Don’t praise yourself for your
successes.
If you eat a chocolate bar every morning, acknowledge it, almost as if
you were watching someone else. Oh, how interesting that they would do
such a thing. If you binge-eat, simply notice that you are eating more
calories than you should. If you waste time online, notice that you are
spending your life in a way that you do not want to.
The first step to changing bad habits is to be on the lookout for them. If
you feel like you need extra help, then you can try Pointing-and-Calling in
your own life. Say out loud the action that you are thinking of taking and
what the outcome will be. If you want to cut back on your junk food habit
but notice yourself grabbing another cookie, say out loud, “I’m about to eat
this cookie, but I don’t need it. Eating it will cause me to gain weight and
hurt my health.”
Hearing your bad habits spoken aloud makes the consequences seem
more real. It adds weight to the action rather than letting yourself
mindlessly slip into an old routine. This approach is useful even if you’re
simply trying to remember a task on your to-do list. Just saying out loud,
“Tomorrow, I need to go to the post office after lunch,” increases the odds
that you’ll actually do it. You’re getting yourself to acknowledge the need
for action—and that can make all the difference.
The process of behavior change always starts with awareness. Strategies
like Pointing-and-Calling and the Habits Scorecard are focused on getting
you to recognize your habits and acknowledge the cues that trigger them,
which makes it possible to respond in a way that benefits you.
Chapter Summary
With enough practice, your brain will pick up on the cues that predict
certain outcomes without consciously thinking about it.
Once our habits become automatic, we stop paying attention to what
we are doing.
The process of behavior change always starts with awareness. You
need to be aware of your habits before you can change them.